That summer, long ao
by vanhunks
Summary: J/C Will a marriage stand when it's tested? r


That summer, long ago  
  
in the Vignette series, a short story  
  
by  
  
vanhunks  
  
Rating: PG-13 [for some angst]  
  
Disclaimer: Paramount owns the characters.  
  
NOTE: This story was inspired by the Summer Time contest of Voyager Talent Nights.  
  
SUMMARY: What happens when a marriage is tested?  
  
*  
  
THAT SUMMER, LONG AGO  
  
KATHRYN  
  
The lake always did look best in summer.  
  
When it rained and the steam rose up from the road and it mingled with the fine mist that sifted towards the surface, and the rainbow curved majestically halfway across the firmament just after thick billows retreated and the grass on the verge of the road smelled like fresh earth newly dug, she thought of that day, long ago.  
  
It was the day she almost lost him.  
  
It stormed that day, in the middle of summer here by the lake where blue herons visited daily and she had come to find peace. She had been watching the herons and the lonely blue crane that glided down to perch on the white sand, its wings closing around its body as it came to rest. The crane reminded her of the man who also stood there, barely ten paces away from her as if he too, like the crane, were afraid to come closer. Or, if she took a step forward, her movement or her intent to touch them created a film, a barrier behind which man and crane retreated...  
  
Funny how Chakotay, standing there with water streaming down his face, oblivious of the sounds of thunder and the suddenness of the downpour, could look at once like all the most extreme aspects of his nature. Dressed in his old Maquis gear, he was rugged, the aggression and wolf-like hunger not competing with his gentle nature, but incongruously juxtaposed his great departures and at the same time, meshed them into the warrior man. It also exuded that which she most admired about him: his quiet inner strength.  
  
He had been devastated. He had been angry. He had been disillusioned. He had come back...  
  
She?  
  
"I did not expect you, Chakotay."  
  
"You need me."  
  
"There is nothing that I need. All that I had, I lost. It can never return to me."  
  
"And what about me?" he asked, blinking as water dripped into his eyes. She wondered if they were tears. She did not expect tears. Hers had dried up long ago. She too, had been unaware that she was drenched and that the sudden waft of air made her shiver.  
  
"What about you, Chakotay? You can no longer wish me as part of your life..."  
  
"No!" It was a cry that tore from him. "No... What happened, happened, Kathryn. No one could be blamed - "  
  
"And no one honoured. The fault was mine - "  
  
"Why do you crucify yourself so?"  
  
"Because I can't feel the walls that must remind me every day of my deed - "  
  
"There are no walls, there is no deed and therefore there is no guilt. Didn't I tell you once that we can share our grief and our loneliness and sorrow and it will be halved?"  
  
"And the Joy that is no longer there?"  
  
"It will multiply, Kathryn. I swear we'll be happy again. Just...let me be a part of your life again."  
  
"There will be no Ciaran..."  
  
Her heart stopped beating. In that space she saw Ciaran again. Ciaran with his dark hair and dark eyes and skin like his father. Ciaran who smiled as he looked up from the book he was reading. Ciaran holding his father's hand as they walked along the sandy shore of the lake. Ciaran holding up his trophy with pride in his eyes...  
  
Ciaran walking away, embraced by the silent waters; Ciaran who became smaller and smaller, until he dissolved in the mist over the lake...  
  
"Let me stay," Chakotay said, taking a step closer. Did the crane also move towards her? Did it become less afraid?  
  
"My heart is heavy, Chakotay."  
  
"I'm here."  
  
"Stay with me..."  
  
Kathryn remembered that day. It had stormed then, and the clouds had just started moving away. There was no Ciaran anymore. Now, it was fifteen years to the day. She visited this lake every year since he died. In her despair, she let Chakotay go, too.  
  
Guilt was a burden that became as heavy as the mountains or, on a rain- filled summer day, soaked into her soul. It wouldn't leave her. She had learnt that guilt was sometimes misdirected, or unfairly apportioned, borne out of the mind's irrational inability to accept death and to accept that Ciaran would never return to them.  
  
Staring out over the glistening lake, Kathryn saw again the blue herons, the crane - so many years later - that must be new generations of herons and cranes.  
  
Life, she decided, had a way of reminding the living that it moved in a never-ending cycle. Without turning round, her hand sought for the familiar warmth and strength of the man who stood behind her.  
  
"I love you, Chakotay," she breathed softly, aware only of his presence and the softly sifting rain on her skin.  
  
**  
  
CHAKOTAY  
  
He couldn't remember a time that he didn't think of Kathryn. She was always somewhere in his conscious, always. Now, standing with her by the lake, aware of the sun and the rain, he let his mind go to that day he thought he'd lost her forever.  
  
Always, Kathryn had allowed guilt to be her companion, even when the evidence proved that none could be hers. She felt everything that she had a part in as something intensely personal.  
  
After Ciaran... He gave a sigh as thoughts of Ciaran assailed him. After Ciaran Kathryn, too wracked by guilt and anger at the world, drifted away from him. It was not her fault, but Ciaran was their son and Ciaran resembled him. No one could be blamed for the accident, yet Kathryn accepted it as she did everything that happened on Voyager, as her personal mission, her responsibility.  
  
It almost destroyed her, reduced her to nothing but a shell of the beautiful, strong Starfleet Captain.  
  
He had returned to the lake that day, five years after Ciaran's passing, and begged to share her burden. Nothing had changed in her and it broke his heart to witness that she had found no absolution.  
  
"Let me share your burden," he pleaded, unable to mask his undying devotion, forgetting in those moments the way she rejected him time after time that he tried to reason with her.  
  
"If I couldn't live with myself, Chakotay, how can I live with you? Every time I look at you, I - "  
  
"Please..."  
  
It had stormed that day, not unusual for summer, the build-up of humidity later causing the loud claps of thunder. He hadn't felt the cold. Instead, the road simmered with steam that rose and joined with the rain into a soft curtain. Kathryn stood a distance away from him, and he saw her in a haze, really. He had not taken any notice of the water that ran down his cheeks into his neck. Just as quickly as the rain had come down, it stopped and the clouds moved away. Later, looking into Kathryn's pained face, he thought he saw the rainbow reflected there.  
  
Since Ciaran, Kathryn never smiled, never held another person's baby in her arms. There were to be no more for them too. That had eaten away at her, corroded her defences and opened her wide to pain. It also pushed him away. She had looked so lonely that day. It was hard to believe it was summer. Hard to believe that just round the corner of the small bay, the voices of children rang up, or on other beaches people were sunning themselves, sitting under large umbrellas and sipping long, cool drinks. He had always prided himself that their union could withstand life's curve balls, the odd spoke in the wheel a higher power put there to halt their progress to a greater and perfect understanding.  
  
Kathryn's loneliness, her aloneness burned deep into his soul. He felt he failed her, that his love for her was not strong enough to sustain both of them. Over and over he tortured himself for allowing her to push him away from her grief.  
  
And so he stood that day, soaked and steaming and half angry at himself that he had not come sooner or tried with unending regularity to reach her, looking at Kathryn.  
  
"Let me share your sorrow."  
  
"And my Joy?"  
  
That was what lifted him, what gave him greater courage.  
  
"It will multiply."  
  
"There will be no Ciaran, Chakotay," she said, her eyes sad.  
  
"I ask for nothing more than to remain by your side."  
  
"My heart is heavy, Chakotay."  
  
"I am here now. Let me stay."  
  
She had taken a step towards him; he reached to take her hand, grateful for all eternity when she placed her hand in his.  
  
"I love you, Kathryn..." he murmured as he pulled her gently in his arms.  
  
Now, they were standing on the shore of the lake they visited every year in summer. Always summer. Kathryn stood in front of him gazing out over the water. He was hardly aware of the herons and blue cranes who also made their trek to this part of the lake. He had been thinking of that day Kathryn accepted him back in her life.  
  
He shared her sorrow, her grief, her heartache; his presence was a balm to her, his words of solace healing her heart. He held her during the darkest nights when she, unable to carry on, broke down and wept for Ciaran. Those nights he wept with her.  
  
Together their tears flowed, and afterwards when she lay in his arms, breathing his name softly, he'd know she could carry on again. Always, he made sure he was there.  
  
The price of pain, the penalty for sharing of that pain mattered little to him, but that Kathryn could heal again.  
  
He felt Kathryn's hand reach for him and eagerly took it in his, allowing her to lean back against him and letting his strength bolster her.  
  
"Last night, Kathryn my love, I saw Ciaran..."  
  
It did not occur to her to ask why he didn't tell her immediately. She knew how the moment for revelations always chose itself. Now was that moment.  
  
"Was he happy, Chakotay?"  
  
"How could he not be? My father was there with him..."  
  
"Then he was in good company, I'll say."  
  
"He was, Kathryn."  
  
Only then she turned fully into his embrace, looking up at him; she smiled a smile that reached her eyes.  
  
"I love you, Chakotay..."  
  
His own words, filled with hope that soared and gave the rainbow renewed colour, joined seconds later...  
  
"I love you, Kathryn..."  
  
********  
  
END 


End file.
